You are here

Strict and Symmetric Correlated Equilibria Are the Distributions of the ESS's of Biological Conflicts with Asymmetric Roles

Authors:

Avi Shmida & Bezalel Peleg

Abstract:

We investigate the ESS's of payoff-irrelevant asymmetric animal conflicts in Selten's (1980) model. We show that these are determined by the symmetric and strict correlated equilibria of the underlying (symmetric) two-person game. More precisely, the set of distributions (on the strategy space) of ESS's coincides with the set of strict and symmetric correlated equilibria (described as distributions). Our result enables us to predict all possible stable payoffs in payoff-irrelevant asymmetric animal conflicts using Aumann's correlated equilibria. Italso enables us to interpret correlated equilibria as solutions to biological conflicts: Nature supplies the correlation device as a phenotypic conditional behavior.